e prisoner too drunk to run--the
officer too drunk to pursue.

The pair had scarcely crawled up among the luggage upon the stage-top,
before there was an outcry from the passengers on the box in
front--"Uncock your pistols! uncock your pistols!" for the officer had
dropped his fire-arms, cocked and capped, upon the top of our coach, with
the muzzles pointed towards us. And indeed I may affirm here, that I never
saw metallic cylinders with more menacing aspect, than those which lay
quietly behind us, ready to explode--unconscious instruments as they
were--and carry any of the party into the next world upon the slightest
lurch of the stage-coach.

"Uncock your pistols," said the passengers.

But the officer, in the mellifluous dialect of his mother country, replied
that "He'd be ---- if he would. Me prishner," said he, "me prishner might
escape; or, the divil knows but there might be a rescue come to him, for
there's a good many of the same hereabouts."

It struck me that no person upon the top of the stage-coach was so
particularly interested in this dispute as the member of the Foreign
Legion, who was on his way either to the gallows or a perpetual prison. I
observed that he nervously twitched at his handcuffs, perhaps--as I
thought--to prepare for escape in case of an explosion; or else to be
ready for the rescue; or else to take advantage of his captor, the tall
policeman--jump from the stage, and run for dear life and liberty. Never
was I more mistaken. True to his race, and to tradition, Pat was only
striving to free himself from the leather shackles, in order to fight any
man who was an enemy to his friend the policeman, and the pistols, that
were cocked to shoot himself. But had not poor Paddy made such blunders in
all times? The hubbub increased, a terrific contest was impending; the
travellers below poked their heads out of the windows; there was every
prospect of a catastrophe of some kind, when suddenly Jeangros rose to his
feet, and said, in a voice clear and sharp through the tumult as an
electric flash through a storm, "_Uncock those pistols, or I will throw
you from the top of the coach!_"

There was a pause instantly, and we heard the sharp click of the cocks, as
they were lowered in obedience to the little stage-driver. It had a
wonderful power of command, that voice--soft and clear, but brief,
decisive, authoritative.

It is quite interesting to ride fellow-passenger with a person who has
played